The girl in the glass
by Sanetwin
Summary: Quinn has waited an entire year for this moment.


A silence hangs heavily in the room, with each breath you take in; you can practically taste the jealousy hanging in the air. Hundreds of faces look up at you, their eyes glazed in awe as they stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, beneath you. Finn takes your hand and squeezes each digit lightly, caressing the back of your hand with the soft pad of his thumb. You don't cast a single glance to the boy because your eyes have set on the two sets of gleaming crowns, glimmering in the dim light of the room.

Your skin prickles and tingles with goose bumps at the sight of your dearest dream so close to you. A sigh releases from your tight smile as Mr. Figgins finally reaches you, takes the sparkling tiara up into his dark hands, and places it onto your head. Your giddy heart jumps frantically at how light it feels against your head. It is unbelievable how something can take up your life, thought, and entire being...and yet still feel so delicate.

With another breath, you look around the crowd with disbelief, you have given up so much for this moment, sacrificed everything to be standing here, on this stage, wearing the crown your mother and sister had worn, and stare out at the people who had sworn hatred upon you last year.

This is it, you think, you have finally redeemed yourself, you have finally gotten everything that you want. The past can finally be forgotten and wisp from your mind like a bad dream, because now you have something new and shiny to latch onto.

It wasn't easy, after giving up…your child…you had spent most of your summer nights crying, it didn't help that your mother could barely look at you let alone speak to you. Then one day, you woke up, and just like that, you decided that you would not shed another tear for your loss and your destroyed dignity. You went running, and worked off that mushy, soft, sympathetic person you had become, hardened your heart, and drew up a plan.

The first day of school, you wore a tight blouse to show off your newly thin body, and you went to work. Santana had to go down first, it wasn't difficult, you had never felt that obligatory pull of friendship towards her. So, you used her summertime insecurity as a stepping stone and pushed her into the dirt on the way.

Sam was cute, he smiled at you with a grin so bright, it looked as if he had mistaken you for some God. His soft words almost melted your resolve; his adoring gaze brought a little flutter of life into that calculated heart you had created. However, his soft words always lead to soft touches and kisses that lingered too long. He would kiss your neck with the softest lips you have ever felt, but his hands would grab at you desperately, always wanting more. You could almost taste the wine cooler lingering on your breath, and hear Puck's husky, reassuring voice in your ear. It happened every time, and every time, you would smack away Sam's persistent hands. Every time, you would rest your trembling fingers onto your flat belly and whisper excuses to the boy as you feel to make sure that there was no baby bump hiding behind that Cheerios uniform.

In the end, he was just another stepping-stone and you used him just as easily, for what was important.

The most challenging part of your plan was getting that malleable quarterback reattached to your hip. Frustratingly, the boy seemed rather enamored with a loud dwarf; however, you have always been a cool and collected person, it was only a matter of time before Rupaul messed up, and you would be there. So you waited patiently, you sat through their sappy songs and intimate, secret interactions; you bore all of them with a smile. Until one day, she did mess up, her poor, passionate heart overthrew her reasonable mind and flew Finn's miserable mind into your hands. It only took a few soft smiles to regain his trust, and soon enough he was by your side, looking at you as he did with Rachel and you get a sensation close to triumph. However, that didn't make Finn want only you and soon you find that he gazes at Rachel just as much as he ogles you. Feeling that crown slipping from your fingertips, you take it a step further and befriend the girl who had stolen Finn's heart. The girl smiles softly up at you as you compliment her, Rachel's dark eyes shine with delight as you do the one thing nobody has ever done for her, listen.

However, Rachel is smarter than you had given her credit for, and soon she is on your trail. She comes to you with a small frown on her lips and eyes brimming full of betrayal and sadness. You thrum your fingers against the ivory keys of the piano in a soft and lulling melody, filling the air with a song so sweet and bitterly sorrowful. When she opens her mouth, the song dies, but the sorrow still plays its own melody. Her voice sounds so different; it wasn't boisterous and loud, or demanding and flippant. No, it was soft and gentle, wavering weakly as it blew past her trembling lips. It made you feel sick, like one of those summer nights wondering how you got so lost, how you had fallen from grace so greatly.

However, Rachel Berry, being the annoyingly tactless dwarf that she is, stumbles over their unspoken agreement and brings up Beth. At the sound of her name, you feel a tiny click within yourself and you forget "cold and calculated" as your eyes become ablaze with emotion. As you stand to meet the girl, your lips move faster than your mind can comprehend and you don't stop talking until the girl is trembling and staring at the floor, her dark ebony eyes swelling with unshed tears.

It is only when Rachel is running away from you with her head hanging low and deep sobs echoing in the auditorium that you taste salt on your trembling lips. Quickly, you wipe the wetness from your cheeks and dry your stinging eyes. Your heart curls in on itself in a different kind of agony that leaves a blush on your cheeks. With an angry growl, you slap your hand against the smooth surface of the piano, you have never been more confused in your life, and you hate it. You hate that talking to this midget had let out that weakness you had locked away over the summer.

Fervently, you tell yourself in a sick mantra that you will be forever crueler to this girl, who reminded you of the person you had been last year.

Every day, you had made sure to kiss Finn right in front of Rachel; you smiled sweetly up at him and held his hand. You told yourself that it was just to promote yourself for Prom Queen, but the feel of that sickly sweetness swelling in your chest whenever Rachel's dark eyes gazed at you, told you something otherwise. The sight of those sweetly passionate eyes darkening with jealousy made it that much easier to stab the knife deeper into her back and tell the boy that you loved him. You can practically hear the girl's heart shatter from across the room when Finn murmurs those three words back to you.

The entire year swirls before your eyes in a matter of seconds and you find yourself back in front of the cheering crowd with a plastic smile painted onto your lips. Finn is guiding you off the stage, but you want to shake off his grip, this moment came and went too quickly. You stare out at the crowd and relish the final moments of power pulsing in your veins and taking as many mental pictures as you can until Finn finally finds your hand again, and guides you off the stage.

Your peers pat you on the back as you pass, and you wonder silently if they can see how weak your legs feel, if they know how important this is to you, or how badly you are trembling as you stumble towards the bathroom.

Finally, you reach the bathroom and, stumbling slightly, you manage to swing the door open and walk cautiously across the wet, tiled floor. A grimy mirror sits in front of you, dirt is plastered onto its glass and you scowl, this is hardly a place for a queen; however, the girl within that glass manages to catch your attention through the dirt. A satisfied smirk pulls at your lips as you see the girl in the mirror. Her hair is pulled back into a tight, braided bun. In the neon lighting of the bathroom, the blonde hair reflects the dim light and shimmers like a golden halo around her head. Her skin appears to be as white as ivory, only swelling to a delicate pink around her cheekbones, complimenting her beauty in ways unimaginable. Following down a slender neck, her curved collarbones provides rest to a scarlet rose intertwined with silver chains that wind around her neck in an elegant necklace. Soft crimson tinted lips curl into a satisfied smirk, showing briefly the pearly white teeth, all aligned into a beautiful smile.

To complete the perfect picture, you see a delicate, diamond tiara sitting on her head with grace.

However, your smile freezes as you look into the girl's eyes, your stomach rolling with nausea. You swallow hesitantly, a hand reaching to your fluttering heart as it harbors a deep seeded disgust. You shutter at the feeling of your heart wrenching painfully, as you would imagine a knife would feel like as it twists in between your ribcage and slices at your heart. Furrowing your eyebrows, you search the girl's eyes, searching for a strange deformity that could possibly make you feel this way. What you find are two perfectly proportional and positioned hazel eyes that glint with speckles of gold, flashing in the bright light. These eyes are completely devoid of deformity or hideousness, yet they make you shiver with contempt. Your heart begins to pound against your ribs angrily and, dropping eye contact from the girl, you try to find what you had loved about her merely seconds ago. The crown that once sat lightly upon your head grows heavy, weighing you down and curving your spine as your shoulders drop. You lift your eyes to see the girl following your every move, looking increasingly pale and sallow, her face stricken with fear. The diamonds on the tiara don't twinkle quite as brightly as they did a few minutes ago. When you look back into the mirror and find those sullen hazel eyes gazing back, you see the ice encrusted in those hazel orbs and suddenly, you know what it is that is making you fall apart at your seams.

_Guilt _

Which is silly, because, really? Why would you ever feel guilty? You did nothing wrong, you simply used people's stupidity as an advantage, why does that matter? This year was about you anyway.

The sound of the bathroom door opening makes you jump skittishly and whirl around. You feel your shoulders tremble, and for a moment, you cannot tell if it is from rage or sadness when you see Rachel leaning against the opening of the door, whispering to Finn. The freakishly tall boy still has his crown placed proudly on his head and he smirks greedily down at the girl as she babbles. With his hands shoved into his pockets, you see him shuffle towards the girl with that stupid grin plastered on his face.

The girl, in response, ducks her head shyly and blushes prettily but her lips turn down into a frown and her whispers become more frantic. You feel your breath die in your throat at the sight, Finn's dark gaze flickers towards yours, and for a short second, your eyes interlock with his. His seedy smirk falls slightly and he grimaces while guilt glints within those dark, beady eyes and almost immediately, he drops eye contact. Ducking his head, he nods and backs off, practically running away from the bathroom.

You clench your jaw because, in that moment, you know that Finn loves Rachel more than you, and will always want her over you. Your eyes rake over the girl's body, hoping to see what the boy could possibly find in her.

Scowling, you glare at Rachel as she leans her head back against the door and stares into empty space. You have done everything in your power to keep Finn under your thumb and away from Rachel, and yet, on _your _night, it breaks apart. With your blood boiling, you walk towards Rachel, feeling the girl in the mirror's eyes bore into you with every step.

"Really Berry, I take my eyes off you for one moment and you are already trying to pry Finn away with your grubby man hands. What, do you think he's your Romeo or something?" The girl jumps slightly and faces you with sullen eyes; her lower lip juts out slightly, attracting your eyes immediately. You fully expect her to launch into a rant about how her hands are not mannish at all and you wait patiently for her eyes to screw up cutely whenever she gets all riled up. Instead, she takes a step back from you as a nervous smile flitters across her lips.

"I-I can assure you Quinn, my intentions are perfectly innocent. I wanted to wash my hands and Finn came up to me." She says simply as she steps around you carefully and saunters over to the sink. You watch dumbly as the girl moves past you to wash her hands, the short petite girl in the mirror meets Rachel's eyes, her dark eyes twinkling with integrity. Jealousy boils your blood and makes your lips twitch, you should have left it right there. You could have walked out of the room with your dignity intact, you could have forgotten all about those strange little pains in your chest at the sight of the mirror.

Instead, you smile sweetly and take a step towards her, cornering her between you and the sink.

"What was so important that Finn just had to chase you down to the bathroom to talk to you?" Rachel pauses and looks up at you through the mirror, you look down because looking at Rachel would make you look up at the girl in the mirror.

"He wanted me back, he told me he loved me and that he missed me." You hiss at the words and glare at the ground, you knew this was coming but it hurts more than you would expect to hear it from her. You spare a glance at her and you see her looking at you, her wide, ebony eyes staring at you intently, and a tiny part of you recognizes that this wouldn't hurt as much if Finn had told that to Santana, or Brittany, or anybody else…as long as it wasn't Rachel.

"Why? Why would he want you? I am popular, you are nothing" The words are out of your mouth before you can think, Rachel's remains unfazed and her expression never changes. "You have no idea the sacrifices I have made; you will not ruin this for me…" Your sentence drops off at the look Rachel gives you, her eyebrows furrow in confusion and she crosses her arms as a small, indignant frown makes its way across her pink lips.

After a moment, a chuckle bubbles from her throat and now it is your turn to be confused as Rachel laughs at you. She throws her head back as soft laughter fills the room like music.

"Please Quinn, I am truly happy for you, I really am but don't play dumb with me. Don't pretend that I and the rest of the Glee club don't know what sacrifices you have made." Clenching your jaw, your head buzzes with fury, but something twists in your chest. Your heart tugs and pulls painfully at each word that falls from Rachel's lips and when you speak up, trying to sound venomous, your voice only comes out in a whisper.

"What are you talking about?" Rachel's eyes soften slightly and she shrinks back a bit. You see the girl in the mirror on the other side of Rachel, her hard-set frown and angry stance. Rachel's words echo through your head

"Forget I said anything, this is your special night" She murmurs softly and eyes the door longingly.

"No! You started this, what the hell are you trying to say" Your stubbornness creeps through and boils your blood; this girl has always brought it out of you. Taking a step closer to her, you see the girl shrink back slightly and turn back to the mirror. With an exasperated sigh, she looks at you through the mirror. Hazel and brown eyes interlock and you can see all the raw emotion swirling in Rachel's eyes.

"I suppose the Glee club and I sort of assumed, with everything that happened last year that you would be…kind." Her eyes begin to swim with tears "I thought that since you knew what it was like to be on the bottom, that maybe…we could be…" Her breath dies and you watch her solemnly as she takes a steady breath. She never finished the sentence but you knew what she was trying to say. _Friends_, "but now I know how silly we were…I-I mean…to think somebody like you would want to be friends…with somebody like me. Preposterous" Unable to keep eye contact, you look down to the ground. Your heart is twisting in strange ways and you are getting the same strange tugging you had gotten when you first glanced into your reflection. When you look back up, you see that Rachel is wringing her hands nervously and when your eyes interlock once again. You see the sincerity in those wide, ebony eyes, your stomach drops and you barely catch Rachel's whispers in the silent room behind the whooshing of blood in your ears. "I hope that you are happy Quinn," As Rachel looks at you intently; you see your reflection in those ebony orbs. You see the girl who had turned her back on all of her friends and forgot all the lessons you had learned for a petty tiara. You see the terrifying glint in those cold, hazel eyes, and suddenly you can see the hideous deformity that had been hiding behind gorgeous hazel eyes.

Guilt crashes down on you in waves and suffocates you with images of the people you have wronged. You feel yourself slip a little bit, memories pushing and pressuring painfully on your temples in a throbbing rhythm.

Santana's sneer as you slipped on that Cheerios uniform and pushed her to the bottom.

Sam's expressions when he realized that you had cheated on him and knowing that you would have played him like a fool had Santana not intervened.

Finn's dopey smile as you told him you loved him, you should have known not to lie to him, you knew how sensitive he would be after last year but it felt so good to be on top again, and so you quietly stole him from under Rachel's feet with insincere words.

Rachel's inquisitive gaze as you stalk past her slushie stained and crumpled form with a smirk. Those pink lips turned down into a frown as you pushed her ideas back into her face. And you realize that it wasn't Finn as much that she was staring at with that heartbroken expression, betrayal clear in the once warm brown eyes of hers. It was you, because she expected better, better from you. As if, you deserve that trust to begin with. So, instead, you ripped her down on every level, all the while making sure Finn never gets back together with her.

Everything you had prided over suddenly seems worthless, the tiara sitting on your head looks cheap, looks plastic; it sure doesn't feel worth this pain you are feeling now.

You don't feel your own body move until the smell of peaches overwhelms your nose and you feel Rachel's nervous hands flittering over your back. Silently, you wonder how your head got nuzzled into the crook of your enemy's neck.

The minutes blur into hours and neither girl moves. Your head remains nuzzled into the girl's neck, staining the girl's dress with endless tears as Rachel's hand rubs your back, mumbling incoherently in a confused jumble of sympathy.

As the babbling of voices outside the bathroom decrease to a small trickle of whispers, you finally crane your neck as your gaze flickers to the mirror.

The girl whose hair had once been spun into a perfect bun now lays in disarray, tendrils of splintered, golden hair covers your eyes and brushes your cheek. Black tears of mascara run down her cheek and collide with her smudged, crimson lipstick. A whole year of work, trying to be perfect and make up for last year and finally the day has come to prove yourself and you have never felt so lost.

Your exhausted heart throbs tiredly, having no energy to beat out any new pain and your arms loosen your hold on Rachel and fall to your side uselessly

Your gaze flickers to the left and you find a short, brunette girl beside the blonde girl, staring back out at Rachel. The short girl's gaze holds no contempt or hostility that had possessed the girl staring back at you. Your mind reels with amazement as you wonder how Rachel had somehow won the affection of her twin behind the glass. Rachel blinks, and noticing your intruding stare, she blushes slightly and takes a slight step back.

For a moment, Rachel mirrors your own movements, furrows her eyebrows in confusion of the past hour, and takes a step back from you.

You feel as if an apology is in order, or at least a thank you and your lips part as words form on your tongue, urging to jump from your strict lips. However, your words die with your breath as you hear the soft click of the bathroom door as it closes shut, leaving you alone with the girl in the mirror.

You don't leave the bathroom until the dance is over and the teachers find you sitting alone on the counter, facing away from the mirrors and staring blankly across the room. It isn't until you are graced with the comfort of your own bed that your mind goes over tonight with an ounce of comprehension.

As you are slowly overcome with drowsiness and your eyelids flutter closed with the weight of sleep. Your heart steadies for the first time this evening as you think back to Rachel, her soft hands and peach perfume, the warmth and belevolance she had given you after everything. But most of all, the look of pride and dignity in her eyes as she looked in the mirror. The last coherent thought that comes to your mind as you fall into oblivion is that you hope that one day in the future you will be able to look into the mirror and find a girl who can happily look you straight in the eye.


End file.
